


Out of Mind

by Crowsister



Category: Star Wars Legends: The Old Republic
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, KotFE spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-06
Updated: 2015-12-06
Packaged: 2018-05-05 05:26:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,756
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5363012
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Crowsister/pseuds/Crowsister
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Theron Shan had been in a forced sleep for five years under carbonite. When gathering allies for his Alliance, the first one he looked for was Kaiadri Ardonel. AU Swapping Theron into the role of the Outlander.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Out of Mind

**Author's Note:**

> This idea's been jostling in my head for a while and I'd like it to be known that I'm not sorry. If you want more of Kai/Theron, go look into Angels & Acts and the Rough Draft Drabbles of Daughters & Deeds.

He sighed.

Frozen solid in carbonite, for five years. The time seemed longer to former SIS Agent Theron Shan. Lana had bust him out of Arcann’s little trophy room because she didn’t know where else to turn. She hated to admit it in front of others, but the two of them made a good team.

He looked out over the expanses of Nar Shaddaa’s busy nightlife. Things hadn’t changed much for Nar Shaddaa, especially not since his Alliance had destroyed the Star Fortress above it. The planet was starting to heal back to its criminal ways. Theron wasn’t sure if that was good or bad, but hey. It made some people happy and willing to work with him. He needed everyone he could get.

He walked from the taxi port, shoving his hands in his pockets and looking around. The whole place was getting to him and not in a way that was usual with Nar Shaddaa.

This was her home. This is where she had come from, where the Director found her conning people out of credits to feed the other orphans on the streets. He hadn’t known that about her until he did some late night digging recently. It should’ve been obvious with how Kaiadri operated that she had the roots of a street rat with a heart of gold: information gathering by bartering with homeless children on the street, keeping candy and a toy on her person in case she came across a crying child...he just figured she had a soft spot for kids, but the more he was recruiting for the Alliance, the more he was coming across people affected by her.

It was another Jedi, the Battlemaster of the Jedi Order herself, who gave him the lead on Kai. She reintroduced herself as Jazlyn Teril, said she worked with Kai in the past. Wasn’t lying, he knew that for certain: he did recruit the two of them to the Incursion of Korriban. The two chaffed a bit, had some kind of personal history, but the two were civil enough to each other that he had no reason to doubt the truth of Jazlyn’s lead.

“During training, Ardonel talked a lot about giving back what was given to her. Seeing as our overseer, Master Britade, referred to her as Kaiadri of the Nar Shaddaa streets, may I suggest you start your search there?” The Miraluka had tilted her head a moment, pausing. As if listening to something he couldn’t. Probably was, with the Force and whatnot. “Perhaps someone there has seen where we have not.”

It had been more of a lead than anything he could find. Only rumors of the Barsen’thor on the Holonet, wild claims of her doing out of character things...nothing that pieced together right. Nothing that sounded like his-like Kai, at any rate.

He turned a corner, keeping out of alley ways and on the main streets. The streets weren’t much safer than the alley ways, but at least he’d see if someone tried to mug him. He sighed, stopping under a lamp post for a moment and running his hands through his hair. He tried to think of what she’d do, in his steps. He let out a smirk when he remembered she would try something out of a Jaqs’bawnd movie. Maybe have a bunch of dead drops throughout the planet, one of them just for him. The smirk left him and he sighed, putting his hand back in his pocket and walking again. He grimaced when he started picking up frequencies on his implants. He hated when he did that, not being able to control sometimes when he’d pick up on things he really didn’t want to hear.

He went to switch it off when a highly suggestive feminine voice to speak in Huttese, promising him everything he’d ever wanted and more if he came to a certain address and paid, but something overtook whatever frequency the commercial had been playing on.

“Theron? Theron Shan, oh my stars, is that _you_?”

He blinked. “ _Holiday_? Holiday, is that you?”

“Hmph, **rude**. I asked first.”

That had to be Holiday, Kaiadri’s...friend. He still wasn’t entirely certain what Holiday was, having tuned out Kai’s technobable speech on xenotech in one of their exchanged e-mails.

“It’s me, Holiday. Where are you? Is Kai with you?” he asked, looking around.

He froze when she sighed softly. “Look...Theron, I’m going to give you some coordinates. I’ll wrap up my business with my boyfriend and I’ll meet you there, okay? Just...I’ll see you there.”

“Holiday, what-”

She cut off before he could ask. He got the coordinates, somewhere in the Industrial Sector. He ran back to the taxi, cursing himself for thinking to start in the Red Light Sector. He waited in the taxi, fingers tapping impatiently. Theron hoped she was alive, figuring she was good at what she did and what she did was being a spy. That was a constant between her life as an SIS operative and a Jedi.

He hopped off the taxi, breaking into a sprint. Somewhere along the ride, he’d decided that walking wasn’t going to do him any good. Not with how Holiday had been speaking, not with how much he was worried, and not with the choking feeling that was gripping his chest like a vice. It was almost as bad as the carbonite poisoning in his dreams with Vitiate/Valkorian.

He made it to the coordinates and looked around. It was just an alley way, nothing special about it except for a small plaque on the wall. He waited for Holiday, pacing the length of the alley way like a spice addict. He jumped when something moved behind him, taking a blaster and spinning around.

A little pink and white astromech rolled on and beeped at him. Its optic glowed purple and Holiday fizzled into existence.

“Sorry for the scare. CC is how I get around these days, isn’t she cute? Tharan got her for me so I can be more mobile and independent.” Holiday brushed off dust on her clothes, not meeting his eyes.

“Holiday, _where_ is Kaiadri? If there’s anyone I-we need right now, we need her,” Theron replied, pulling his hands out of his pockets.

“...y’know, Kai-a-bye always looked over a space before walking into it. Look around Theron,” Holiday replied, biting her lip and looking down at the floor.

Theron looked. Alley way, two points of entry and exit -- three if one counted the fire escapes and the rooftops of the surrounding buildings. Six main points of ambush: the corners by the entry points, the fire escapes, the dumpsters, and the variety of junk piles about the alley. He was missing something, so he moved and ran his fingers along the wall until-

The plaque.

He looked, ignoring Holiday’s sniffle as he read it.

_“Kaiadri Ardonel -- A True Hero of the Streets._

_May her pazaak deck be good for every occasion and her memory be kept.”_

“There’s...there’s no way she’s dead, she’s too-”

“Theron, I was there when she died. Her vitals went to zero and she was missing a lot of blood.” Holiday paused a moment as Theron just stared at the plaque. “Those Zakuul creeps were trying to recruit her kids -- y’know, her little band of street rats? -- into their forces. Kai was trying to keep them safe, to get them out of the Industrial Sector and into her ship, but there were so many Zakuul Force-users and she didn’t bring anybody but me with her and I’m not much help in a fight, I just talk and tell people where things are so there’s no surprises. She...she got the kids safe and they brought her here. So she could rest. She got one to take me back to Tharan on her ship, a nice Trandoshan girl named Nika. Tharan and Qyzen and Zenith came back for her, but her body was...it was gone, Theron. There’s a ninety nine percent chance, in every scenario, that she’s dead. I’m sorry, Theron, I knew you two were close.”

Theron leaned against the wall across from the plaque, slowly letting himself slide down it. He was good at hiding his emotions, but...losing the woman he loved was a lot for him to hide and he felt the first tear trickle down his face. “...damn it, Kai...damn you,” he whispered. “You stupid kriffing hero.”

Holiday stood awkwardly as Theron just quietly sobbed, watching him crumple into his own jacket. She was certain Kaiadri wouldn’t want Theron to hurt like this, but she didn’t know what she would do to help. What she knew of Theron, she knew through Kai and Kai hadn’t shared much. But it was obvious the two of them were in love. Holiday shifted through her memory banks and snapped her fingers, snapping Theron from his crying.

He stared blankly as Holiday fizzled out, sighing as he rested his forehead against his knees from his new perch on a pile of desh gears and pipes. He jumped when he heard Kaiadri’s voice, seeing a holographic image of her stand in Holiday’s purple lights. He stood, watching as she smiled that damned crooked smile of hers and played with a pazaak card in her hands.

“ _Heeeeello_ , beautiful people, this is the thrilling and entrancing journal of the wanted criminal of the Zakuul Empire, Kaiadri Ardonel,” the hologram spoke, looking Theron in the eye as she spun the card between her fingers.

“Kai-a-bye, you sure you wanna keep a journal? In my memory banks?” Holiday’s voice asked off screen.

Kaiadri shrugged. “Might as well. You won’t get lost or hacked into like a data-pad or blog. Now...gonna start now.”

“Oh! Right, sorry!”

Kaiadri snorted softly, rolling her eyes. “Anyways, I’ve been keeping my ear to the ground. Nar Shaddaa’s ripe with information and, like Grandpa always said, Nar Shaddaa’s where you go when you wanna get _lost_. I wanna get lost, but mostly to throw off those Eternal Jerkasses. Anyway, I heard some interesting news.”

“What was it, Kai?”

“Well, the Zakuul Empire is having to deal with a troublemaker. You see, he -- the he part’s important -- has been making little raids right off the orbit of Coruscant.” Theron felt his heart skip a beat as her tone got hopeful. “He’s been making a mess of their data servers by ripping out lines of their programming codes. Now, my hard earned credits are on the bet that that troublemaker’s Theron Shan. Theron Shan in his _kriffing_ stupid red jacket.”

“Kai, that’s statistically impossible, he blew up on Marr’s ship! Nobody could find his body!”

“Never tell me the odds when it comes to Theron Shan, Holiday. That man he...” Kaiadri paused, her smile turning fond and Theron reached out a hand to cup the hologram’s cheek, giving a bittersweet smile himself. “He’s got a _disaster_ streak in him, sure. If everything Grandpa told me was right on and not too exaggerated, that’d be the Bastilla in him. But he’s a man who beats the odds. No matter **what**.”

Theron jumped as the recording stopped. “Wait-”

Kaiadri popped up again and Theron gulped. She wasn’t wearing a shirt, stripped down to a sports bra and her pants. She was sitting on some kind of chair this time, twisted into an uncomfortable-looking position that she would have no doubt argued to be comfortable.

“Still no ID on the troublemaker, but given I know Jonas’s location, it can’t be Jonas. I’m still fairly certain the odds are in my favor.”

“Kai, do I gotta keep pointing out that, by all the numbers I’ve run for you, that he’s-”

“In other news, there’s a Holiday storm on my parade. Just in time for Life Day, imagine that.” The image fizzled out a moment and Theron felt a tear drag down his face.

The image refocused and it was Kai standing over a table, messing with her lightsaber and a pistol. Theron noted that it was the same he had given her when they had parted from Manaan. Looked like Kaiadri dropped the black SIS operative uniform finally and looked more like a smuggler than anything else. “So when I finally see him again, I think I’ve narrowed down my line to two options, okay? Here, here they are.”

“These are going to be adorably terrible, aren’t they?” Holiday asked and Kai rolled her eyes, sticking her tongue out at wherever Holiday had been at the time of the recording.

“Shut it, you. Okay, one, hey there Theron, guess what I’m wearing? The smile you gave me. Or two-”

“Kai maybe you should focus on your-”

“Hey, Holiday, you’ve been in a solid relationship since forever, so you probably don’t know this, but pickup lines? They’re important. At least, with me and Theron. I like throwing them nonchalantly at him and watching him short out, he doesn’t know how to deal with sincere pickup lines off the job. Hey, did I ever tell you about how we met? Like, for real met, the training sim doesn’t count, we didn’t really talk-talk. So, Jonas drags me out to this stupid nightclub, I think it was called-”

“Data-spike’s Resort,” the recording and Theron said at the same time.

“And Jonas? Completely _ditches_ me to go flirt up some tall, dark mess of water in the corner, some commando on leave. So I’m sitting there, playing with this old lighter I pickpocketed off of this rich looking guy who was telling these tall tales about him going off on hunts. It was the kind of lighter you use to light a fire out in the middle of nowhere to cook a meal, but hey. It looked cool and it had a neat lid that I could just toy with and snap on and off, on and off. Didn’t actually turn it on, but just flipped the lid open and shut. I was just sitting there, bored out of my skull, when he walks in. A broody mess of a young adult with these gold hazel eyes that freeze just as well as carbonite. He walks up to me and just snatches the lighter, right out of my hands. He smiles and says-” The recording cut off midway, but Theron knew the rest of that story.

She popped up again, still wearing the new armor. She ran her fingers through her hair -- her natural brown now and that made his heart sink to his stomach -- and sighed. “Jedi Master Kaiadri Ardonel, reporting in. Zakuul Intelligence has confirmed that Republic SIS Senior Agent Zane continues to evade their response teams. Nothing more to report.”

“Kai, c’mon. Smile,” Holiday whimpered softly from offscreen. Kai sighed again, looking up at the “camera”.

“Y’know, Holiday? I bet if I opened up with a pickup line, I would have never seen him again.”

“Why is that?”

“Because he would’ve kicked my ass three ways to next week and we _just_ would’ve been academic rivals instead of... _whatever_ we became. I’m not good at this emotional stuff, Holiday, I-” Her voice cracked. Theron’s heart broke just a little more, seeing the hologram version of Kai tear up and grip her hair.

“What would you say to him? If you saw him one last time?”

“I...I would have told him I understood why the _kriffing_... _krif_...why he was going to meet Marr and confront the Emperor. I just wished he had taken me along. I guess...I just gotta do the Jedi way and let him _go_.”

The recording fizzled out and Holiday stood again, giving a bittersweet smile. “Did...did that help? I’m still...learning how to comfort people that aren’t Tharan and Kai. They’re both...pretty unique.”

“...thanks for showing me that and...this.” Theron motioned to the plaque. “Good to know that she’s not just...gallivanting somewhere in the shadows and humming some Jaqs’bawnd theme song. Probably it’d be Skyfall...thanks for everything, Holiday.”

“You’re welcome, Theron. I...I miss her too.”

“Let Cedrax know that if he wants to help out with taking out Zakuul, we could use a medic.”

“I’ll let him know. Take care, Theron.”

“You too.”

The Outlander shoved his hands in his pockets and stared blankly ahead as he walked the streets of Nar Shaddaa. He could hear the little droid Holiday moved around in wheel out, heading the opposite way. He hopped on the taxi, sighing as he called Lana to tell her the news.

**Author's Note:**

> This was heavily inspired by the Red vs. Blue episode, "Out of Mind", of season 10.


End file.
